Jackson State Alumni Say Leadership Instability Is Costing the School Its Future

For the fourth time in less than a decade, Jackson State University is searching for its next university president — and its alumni are calling for more transparency in the search process.

The university’s presidents are picked by the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, which oversees public universities in Mississippi. The board consists of 12 members, with four members from each of the three Mississippi Supreme Court districts. 

Two months into Jackson State’s fall semester, no one has been named to replace former president Marcus Thompson, who resigned in May with no explanation. 

Picking the right president is crucial for any college, but it’s especially vital to historically Black colleges and universities. The role of a HBCU president isn’t just creating a vision and being the face of the institution: It’s finding donors to support the growth of the institution and caring for populations that rely heavily on financial aid. Black colleges remain underfunded, posing a challenge to maintaining aging facilities and housing for the growing population.

Jackson State has had a housing crisis since 2023. Alumni and experts Capital B spoke to pointed to the lack of stable leadership over the past six years as the reason for declining enrollment and other issues at the university. 

Jackson State University did not respond to a request for a comment.

In August, the IHL board announced that it was beginning the search for JSU’s next leader. Since 2020, the three presidents the IHL board has selected have resigned: William Bynum resigned following a scandal involving a prostitution ring in 2020, Thomas Hudson resigned in 2023 after just three years, and Thompson followed suit. Bynum was later found guilty of procuring the services of a prostitute, false statement of identity, and simple possession of marijuana in 2020, according to WLBT3, a local news station. 

“We haven’t had a freshman class since 2012 that graduated under the same president that they were enrolled under,” Mark Dawson, Class of ’89, said.

Dawson remembers when Jackson State recruiters were aggressive in their approach to attracting out-of-state students. 

Originally from Chicago, it was a no-brainer that Dawson would attend Alabama A&M University, the historically Black college in Huntsville, Alabama. He came from a family full of Alabama A&M graduates. That is, until he got a call from Jackson State University in February of his senior year in high school. He hadn’t applied and wasn’t checking for the HBCU in Mississippi until they offered to pay for everything but his books to attend the university. 

Searching for a new leader

Steven Cunningham, an IHL member, is leading the search again, but alumni said they aren’t confident in the board’s efforts. 

“The work of selecting a university president is not easy, and it demands a delicate balance of transparency, solicitation of opinions, and confidentiality for those going through the recruitment and interview process,” said Cunningham, a Jackson State alumnus, in an emailed statement to Capital B. “The IHL Board of Trustees reaffirms its commitment to an open and engaged process.”

In an October meeting, members of IHL officially appointed two chairs for the university’s search for a new president: Cunningham and Al Rankins Jr., who is currently the board’s commissioner of higher education. The two will create a list of people from the Jackson State community to work with the search committee, according to a statement from the board.

In an Oct. 24 statement to Capital B, Cunningham said he and Rankins will provide the names to the board at a future meeting for review.

Thee 1877 Project, a group of alumni with university connections dating back to the 1940s, wants the IHL to take a different approach than in previous searches. The group is not affiliated with the Jackson State University National Alumni Association. 

The alumni organization is named after the year the university was founded by the American Baptist Home Mission Society, according to the university. 

At the last IHL meeting, Dawson said the board talked about the national search for Jackson State University’s next president. A search firm gave a presentation that mentioned the advisory board and the five-month timeline for the search, he said. 

At the end of the presentation, Gee Ogletree, the board’s president, said they haven’t done this type of search in a long time. However, Dawson said that’s not true: The board created an advisory team during their 2017 search but did not listen to its recommendations. 

“When they said they’re going to form an advisory group, our questions are, ‘Well, are you going to listen?’” said Dawson. “Will we have a determining stake? Will we have the ability to reject or approve candidates? Without that, all of this is performative.” 

Dawson said Thee 1877 Project sent a letter to Rankins requesting a meeting with the board on Oct. 22, but had not heard back as of Wednesday, Oct. 29. 

Cunningham said listening sessions were held on Oct. 27 and Oct 28 for JSU for students, faculty, and alums to share what they’d like to see in the next president. An online survey was also available for stakeholders to offer their input, he said.  

Meanwhile, Dawson said he does not know if any alumni from Thee 1877 Project have been contacted to help with the search.

Capital B reached out to the Jackson State University National Alumni Association, but did not receive a response by the time of publication. 

IHL has contacted more than 40 executive search firms across the country. Several firms have experience in filling positions at Black colleges, Cunningham said. 

“We feel like they keep putting these IHL puppets in office so they can continue to do whatever their master plan for Jackson State is,” said Ken Clark, a Jackson State alumnus. “We’re sitting over here in ignorance with question marks over our heads.” 

Alumni taking charge

C. Liegh McInnis, a retired Jackson State English instructor and Jackson State alumnus, said the community continues to be shut out in the presidential searches. 

“Since IHL refuses to work with the stakeholders, we have never had the opportunity to create committees,” McInnis said. 

McInnis said other presidential searches involve presenting the top three candidates from a nationwide search to faculty, students, and alumni. When this did happen in the past, the IHL board went with someone that the community did not agree on, McInnis said. 

But there’s another problem within the JSU community: communication. 

“What we should be doing is rather than waiting on IHL to say, ‘Here’s the kind of president we want you to have,’ we should go in hand with 10 to 20 elements of, ‘Our next president must meet these 20 items,’” McInnis said. 

Clark is the founder of KC 1400 Media, a company dedicated to highlighting sports at Jackson State and its athletes. Recently, Clark and Dawson have teamed up to engage the sports community in discussions about the university’s future leadership. 

KC 1400 Media broadcasts three times a week on its YouTube channel, which has more than 8,000 followers. On the show, the pair has discussed the lack of transparency in the presidential search, as well as the lack of community consideration. 

During a public IHL meeting, when the board announced it would start the search process, Dawson said there were no acknowledgments that IHL had gotten it wrong three times and no recognition of how this search would be different from the others. 

“They haven’t said anything about transparency,” Dawson said. “They haven’t changed any behavior at this point, which is why we’re continuing to put on the pressure.” 

Leading HBCUs can be a “tall task,” experts say

Other Black colleges and universities are in the market for new leaders. Howard University and Spelman College have recently seen presidents resign after short tenures. Across the country, there’s a high turnover rate of university presidents, according to Marybeth Gasman, an expert on Black colleges and minority-serving institutions.

Before the 2010s, it was common for presidents at Black colleges to stay in their roles for several decades at a time. Now, we’re seeing college presidents staying for two to three years, Gasman said.

“There are presidents stepping down, retiring, resigning and being forced out all over the country right now,” Gasman said. “So it doesn’t matter if it’s an HBCU, predominantly white institution … it’s happening all over the country.” 

Gasman said it just seems like it’s happening more at Black colleges because there are only 107 or so HBCUs, compared to thousands of predominantly white institutions. 

Jackson State alumni said the university’s lack of consistent leadership has prevented the university from growing — not just in enrollment numbers, but also in vision, opportunities, and physical expansion of the campus. 

Adriel A. Hilton, a former administrator at Southern University in New Orleans, said the roles of HBCU leaders are the “people’s work,” and to step into the role, you have to be prepared.

“I would say some leaders may arrive at these historic institutions … I would say not prepared for leadership at those institutions,” Hilton said. “You’re assisting students who have been told that they will not succeed, they will not thrive, they will not advance, they will not impact their communities. That’s a tall task.” 

Between 1976 and 2021, HBCUs have seen a 14% increase in enrollment, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case at Jackson State. During the 2022-2023 academic year, a little more than 7,000 students were enrolled at the institution. During spring 2023, enrollment dropped to just over 6,000 students, comprising both graduate and undergraduate programs, according to the university. 

In addition to the task of instilling grit into students, leaders of Black colleges must be “creative,” Hilton added. Black colleges rely heavily on philanthropy, but a president’s job for these institutions involves knowing key players and a level of marketing. 

For some HBCUs, they’re looking for new leaders every two to three years, which is usually less than colleges’ five-year or 10-year plans. These plans are a road map created by the president in consultation with the board, faculty, staff and sometimes students. 

“We are destabilized” 

Some issues at Jackson State are not unique to the institution, but the lack of stable leadership is stalling the university’s progress, the alumni said.

This summer, students took to social media to express their concerns about the university’s lack of housing. Leadership technically hasn’t ignored this problem; Clark said he was able to develop a relationship with then-President Hudson, who presented a housing plan to purchase an old Marriott building in downtown Jackson, which would create around 600 additional housing units for students. 

“I know for a fact there were projects in the works to help us with housing,” Clark said. “Once he was no longer in office, that stuff just went by the wayside.” 

Meanwhile, the University of Mississippi announced that it is partnering with Greystar, a private housing firm, to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the new student housing communities.

Clark said it’s hard to persuade the IHL board and other donors to invest in the university when there is no one at the university for longer than three years to build connections with leaders. 

“When you have an unstable leadership, it’s hard to win those battles,” Clark said. “You don’t have anyone in the room that’s fighting for you now, so now all of the issues that you really have, you don’t have a voice anymore.”

Dawson, with the 1877 Project, pointed out that when MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, donated a $560 million gift to 23 public and private HBCUs in 2020, Jackson State was not among those recipients. 

“We haven’t had anyone to even ask, you know, in a sustained way, for that level of giving,” he said. “So we are destabilized by poorly appointed presidents.”

This story has been updated.

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